For Those About to Squawk: Goat Edition

What’s up beak freaks! Your old boy Waldo comin’ ‘atcha with ALL the new reviews that are fit to print. This time of year, the releases really slow down but don’t fret—your boy knows what’s up. Also, don’t forget to get your Decibel Metal & Beer Fest: LA. Tickets here!

So there’s a Canadian band called Goathammer and they are about to release Ceremony Of Morbid Destruction on Hell’s Headbangers. Here’s the deal with this, this is “bestial.” I mean, this is “bestial” as peck. There’s not a lot to tell that you don’t already know. Bashed out hymns ode to “evil and darkness Joe.” Whammy bar dives and gross-ass vocals abound here, as well as wailing guitar solos and a little black and roll. The one thing that really sticks out is that it seems these songs weren’t all recorded in one session, but there’s enough diversity in these tracks to make this pretty interesting. If you like your metal intense as peck, this is for you. 7 Fucking Pecks.

Moving on to another goat band… Goats Of Doom is releasing Rukous and it’s, well… black metal. This is the type of black metal ya boy is not super into. Trem-picked riffs, screeched vocals, throw in a moody interlude here and there and VOILA! You have a black metal album. This is just not that intense, I mean, I guess it’s OK, and not worthy to hate on entirely, but there’s nothing of interest for me here. Check the weird (off time in a bad way) passage at 1:43… oof) The one thing I DO like here is that the drums are killer and sound raw sometimes. I dunno, maybe these guys are “troo” and “kvlt,” but it’s not my thing. 4 Fucking Pecks.

If you like spastic grind, then Graf Orlock’s Examination of Violent Cinema Vol.1 is for you. Describing this is a little intense as it’s not SUPER spazzy or super grind; no one sounds like Graf Orlock and that’s a great thing. So, to describe this, I’ll just use the press release. “A testament to the rigor mortis of the vapid film industry… Inspired by a dearth of good 2017 films, Examination finds Graf Orlock in fine classic form; basing the entirety of this new release on twelve violent 2017 movies commingled with haphazard and bizarre ideas laid over pointlessly confrontational lyrical content. Contained therein is not only commentary on the weak and prosaic state of the last decades’ endlessly recycled and not-nearly-violent-enough releases, but also the question of how one could even contemplate the creation of ‘art’ in a landscape so devoid of vision. If there will never again be the singularity of almost-politicism and almost-social commentary that was the beauty of 1987’s Predator, should we continue to push this same human-sized ball of celluloid and shit interminably up the same hill?” 7 Fucking Pecks.A Man Named Suicide by Graf Orlock